molloy

and truly it little matters what i say, this or that or any other thing. saying is inventing. wrong, very rightly wrong. you invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept

the heart is a lonely hunter

... and when at last he was inside again he composed himself soberly to await the morning sun

le concept du jour

pantheism

sits and sits and sits and thinks about his olive drab drab

the best time to change things is now ... in fact, it's the only time that you can change anything or make any decision

chinadoc

i just watched the brilliant (Canadian) documentary Manufactured Landscapes and was absolutely mesmerized throughout. it also brought back vivid memories of my time in China and the sheer scale of growth and urbanization i witnessed outside of Shanghai

as Earth Hour approaches

i'm wondering if burning these candles is really better for the environment than electric lights?!

oh, and i did 'earth hour' in africa thanks ;)

i, rome

if you're interesting in learning ancient roman history in a fun way, check out the HBO series Rome (torrent), and Robert Grave's famous novel I, Claudius. together, they give a great overview of the roman empire from Julius Caesar to Nero

i had thought both would be 'heavy', but they are really just so wonderfully entertaining

all i need

accompanied and guided by these voices in his soul, with feelings like those of a soldier home from the wars, he wandered about this pleasant landscape, for the first time in many terrible months not a stranger, a fugitive, a candidate for death, but with an open heart, thinking of nothing, desiring nothing, surrendering utterly to the tranquil present, grateful and somewhat astonished at himself and at this new, unwonted, rapturous state of mind, this undemanding receptivity, this serenity without tensions, this new mode of taking delight in close observation.

good ol' soundscapes

this has to be one of my favourite "best of 2007" reviews:

DEERHOOF - Friend Opportunity
If a whole rack of Japanese candy formed a band that was fronted by a koi fish and a lucky dragon it still wouldn't be one-tenth as bizarre, fun, trippy, or cool as this album.

kiwi funfacts

for those who've never been, here are some interesting / unique facts about New Zealand:

• kiwis get their name not from kiwi fruit, but from a rare nocturnal flightless bird that exists only here


• the most popular kiwi expression is "sweet as!" (e.g. "i won the lottery" "sweet as!") it only took me a week to stop waiting for the rest of the sentence ... sweet as what?!


• meat raffles! they are astonishingly commonplace (after sporting events, at work functions, etc.) weird!


• deer are raised as cattle here for their meat, aka venison (a paddock of deer is a very strange sight for a Canadian)


• bed linens are called Manchester (e.g. "50% off all Manchester, this week only")


• El Camino-style vehicles (car-trucks) are still popular and are referred to as "utes"


• corrugated aluminum siding is somehow considered a stylish option for accenting one's home


• the most popular sport for women is net ball, which is basketball without dribbling or backboards ... and when someone tries to shoot you aren't even allowed allowed to try to block them (read: boring!)


• speaking of women, they outnumber men 2:1 (this sounds like it would work in men's favour, but, no offence ladies, there are very few lookers)


• continuing with women (i'm not obsessing, i swear) New Zealand was one of the first nations in the world to allow them to vote, way back in 1893!

trevor orders a latte in NZ

barista: that'll be four teein
t: how much?
b: four teein
t: fourteen?!
b: four teein!
t: [looks at her like she's crazy] it's fourteen dollars for a latte?!
b: TEEIN!
t: [shakes his head] ........ oh wait, four TEN??
b: YEEIS!!

someone really needs to teach (west coast) kiwis to pronounce their vowels properly! :P

subdued fires

what you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualitities towards an isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the centre, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervour cannot always be seen. in argument, for example, they will not shout and wave their arms. but i assure you, they are nevertheless burning with subdued fires.
~ Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

sweet as

hey'all! yes, i am a bad, bad friend ... i've stayed offline for most of my journey thus far .... but i must admit that it's been a rather refreshing change. anyway, i did manage to post some pics on facebook, and a picture says a thousand words, right?! ;)

i've had a blast in New Zealand though, and will now attempt to update ye on some of my adventures to date:

my first week was spent in and around Christchurch catching up with my sis and Andrew. this was a nice relaxing start to my vacation (can i still call it a vacation when i've been traveling most of the year?! i'm not sure about that (would you believe in heaven if heaven was all you had?)) anywho, Carrie is doing really well (i've never seen her so happy, in fact) and regular baby kicks remind us all that there's another person in the room who wants some attention too!

next i ventured into the countryside to spend a short week out at Andrew's family's sheep farm and to spend time with his (and my new) family. being a city boy, there were plenty of new experiences to be had, include corralling sheep and cows, driving ATVs and tractors, and a lot of opening and closing of paddock gates! (i now consider myself an expert at the latter)

family catch-ups complete, i began my exploration of the country with a tour of the south island. instead of hiring a car or taking individual buses and planning each day out myself, i decided to put the grunt work in someone else's hands and book one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours. two weeks in, i don't regret that decision at all. i've met some great people and did most of the south island circuit with the same cool group (a nice mix of young irish, brits, and canadians)

highlights of the south island tour included:

• swimming with wild seals in Kaikoura (they were so inquisitive and cute ... came within inches of me on multiple occasions!)
• sea kayaking and tramping in Abel Tasman national park
• spending a day walking around and exploring the Franz Josef glacier (i couldn't believe the access we had: the guide took us into tight crevasses and everything!)
• jumping out of a plane from 12,000 feet and living to tell the story (i've wanted to do this for quite some time, and wasn't disappointed in the least ... the smile didn't fade from my face for days!)
• relaxing and partying in the beautiful towns of Wanaka and Queenstown (i'm going back with the family after Christmas)

overall, i've been extremely fortunate: great people, wonderful adventures, and (dare i rub it in) beautiful summer weather! :)

yesterday i took the ferry to the north island and am currently spending a bit of down time (from the rigors of bus travel) in the lovely city of Wellington. next is a trip to Auckland, where i'll hop on a bus tour to further explore the north.

well that's my four dollars worth (everything, including internet access, is rather pricey here.) there are more facebook pics to come when i get back to Christchurch for Christmas (that's alotta Christ, eh?!) and i'll try to blog more in the meantime.

love you!

radiohead tv

for those who haven't heard, radiohead have been randomly streaming live webcasts on their new site www.radiohead.tv. last night's program included live performances of the songs off the new album, some covers (below), and some spot-on deejaying by mr. york himself

today's wordoftheday is ...

haecceity
(because hypokeimenon is so passé)

the NZ plan

Nov
a week in Christchurch with my sis and bro-in-law
a week working on the family sheep farm

Dec
a three-week solo tour of the country, ending in Auckland
back to Christchurch, mom arrives
Christmas holiday with the family
a family trip to Queenstown

Jan
hang with my sis and mom (and aunt, and mom's friends)
rock climbing, more rafting and surfing
wait for my niece to be born :)

Feb
back home on the 12th

global warming

from the Toronto Star:

Residents who donned their shorts Sunday won't be surprised to find it was a record-setting warm day.

Temperatures at Pearson airport hit 26 C, more than twice the normal high for the day ...

So far October has seen an average of nearly 16 C, while around 9 C would be a normal.

“It’s almost seven degrees warmer than what it should be in October and that is quite amazing,” said Phillips. “We should have had a frost by now and we’re not even close to it.”

The lingering frost is why many trees still have their leaves, and in some cases, they’re even green.

“We need a frost or some kind of cool temperature to shock the leaves ... the leaves are faked out.”

tomorrow's forecast: 24 C and sunny ... but the 'faked out' leaves are freakin' me out

oh no!

Gardiner (but my stories never take the express way ...)

the last time i was at Heathrow i noticed that Wallpaper magazine had a new series of travel guides. i like the magazine, and thought "hey, they would have some interesting insights into their destinations." well, wasn't there a city guide for Toronto! i couldn't resist, of course (i always like to read what outsiders have to say about my favourite city.) i flipped it open and it's tabbed style allowed me to immediately notice the heading 24 hours in Toronto (i.e.'if you have one day to spend in the city, hereis a sample itinerary of highlights you should hit')

St. Lawrence Market ... cool, yeah
the 'formal gardens' at St. James Park .... okay, thought that area was kinda sketch
the Toronto Sculpture Garden ... i didn't know what this was at first, but it turns out to be a little square surrounded by office buildings where my cousin and i used to smoke up on his lunch breaks from his job as a collections agent! ha
the Gardiner Musuem ... i had never even heard of it?! but this gem is why i'm writing today .....

the Gardiner is Canada's only museum dedicated to ceramics. it was completely renovated last year and transformed into a beautiful modern exhibition space. i went today and caught a tour with a docent. i was extremely impressed by their current special exhibition Portraits: Gertrud Möhwald, as i was by their collection of contemporary ceramics

how it is with James and me

[me to james]: so let me summarize. my nothing is your three .. my three is your four .. and my four and five are 'codes' which combine to form your five ....
[thinks] ... [laughs]: yes

ittwas i

welcome to a new segment, ittwas (invite trevor to write about something)

Reena is writing an essay and wants my support (as opposed to my help, which would be difficult to give to a non-first-year psych major)

she writes:
... it's kind of a fun topic to write about, i'm just a procrastinator by nature so i haven't started yet. your writing clearly isn't gonna help mine, so this is obviously for interest's sake only, but ... define your social location and how it shapes your ideology. please & thanks :o)

well, first of all, i realize that psychology has very specific definitions, so i'm sure 'social location' means something very succinct ... and something completely un-intuitive, if my experience in the field tells me anything

but to improvise .... my social location: well it's kind of strange, because sometimes i feel like i'm in the centre of everything, and other times i feel like i'm completely on the fringe .. socio-locationally speaking, that is

so i'd say my position is just like that of the edge of the universe .... there is no edge of the universe, so you could argue that it's a combination of both the end and the beginning and/or the centre
(to quote a favourite band: the universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go straight along enough you'll end up where you were)

yeah, so that's my social location ..... either that, or matriarch (the world sipping from my proverbial teet but i feel so used?)

how does that shape my ideology? fuck! even if i tried to answer that, what would it mean?

i·de·ol·o·gy [ahy-dee-ol-uh-jee, id-ee-] –noun.
1. the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual

oh, i like the "etc."

so how does my social location shape my belief system?
well, there is actually some correlation between my stated social location and my belief system, in that sometimes i believe in people, in humanity; believe in their capacity to love and to grow; believe in my own capacity to love and to grow. and other times i fucking hate people; think they are useless and mean ... sometimes i fucking hate myself

fin.

feel free to submit further ittwas requests! ;)

concerts i'm attending ... [updated]

ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL w/Jetplanes of Abraham @ Sneaky Dee's. Oct 6
and the award for best new (to Trevor) Canadian band goes to .... Jetplanes of Abraham! switching vocalists (and instruments) for almost every song, the Ottawa-based indie collective kept us on our toes with their catchy and complex tunes. next came headliners Rock Plaza Central, who recreated their brilliant album Are We Not Horses? (a concept album about mechanical horses who think they are real) with style and presence. but sersly, i'm getting tired of writing reviews like this .....
i really enjoyed the show. check out the bands. fin. ;)

THE NATIONAL @ Phoenix. Oct 8
SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT @ Lee's Palace. Oct 27
BATTLES @ Lee's Palace. Nov 10


past shows:

THE VEILS @ El Mocambo. Sept 5
well this is a story: Brett and i knew we would have to leave the show at 10:45 in order to make the guestlist of a festival party ... so of course the Veils went on at 10:40! the one song we heard ("Nux Vomica", the title track off their latest album) was phenomenal! then we hoped in a cab and left :(

YEAH YEAH YEAHs @ Berkeley Church. Sept 7
okay, this concert season it's going as smoothly as i expected ... Vee and i are not attending this invite-only, catered event (at a church) because one of us has had a hair disaster! i won't say which one of us, but i can say that the situation is worse than it sounds in that her dad's wedding is tomorrow ......... oh well. in lieu of this, we are going to see a documentary together at the film festival on sunday ... and we got to perform evil thought experiments on paris hilton on wednesday night! muhaha

RILO KILEY @ Phoenix. Sept 18
i prefer Rilo Kiley's older albums to the new one, so i was expecting at least momentary 'stage apathy' during this show. i couldn't be more wrong. Jenny Lewis is one of the most engaging performers i've ever seen: sexy, sweet, playful ... you couldn't take your eyes off of her. and what an amazing voice, captured perfectly on the Phoenix's great sound system. even their renditions of the new songs worked, providing context and emotion not adequately captured on the album (imho.) it was a great night, made all the better by the fact that it was my birthday, i was with some of my best friends, and the band sang happy birthday! ... to their keyboardist. ;)

OKKERVIL RIVER @ Lee's Palace. Sept 21
there is no denying that this was a great show .. inasmuchas the band performed very well and have such incredible songs. it's the second time i've seen them at Lee's and, incredibly, one of my biggest issues with the last show was repeated during this one: a handful of idiots in the crowd thought it 'cool' to shout out completely inane things during any and all quiet moments ... including the emotional meanderings of my favourite song! (another distraction was the butch dykes going at it directly in front of me for seemingly the entire show (and it would have been so un-pc to complain, right?!)) the band focused on their more up-beat material and, perhaps as a result, didn't play my favourite song ("Savannah Smiles") from the new album :(
but really, i'm being picky here: i certainly got my $14 worth! :)

MINUS THE BEAR @ The Opera House. Oct 1
meh.

FUJIYA & MIYAGI @ Lee's Palace. Oct 3
great show! the venue was (embarrassingly) half empty, but this only served to give each of us the space we needed to shake our butts to the band's incredibly catchy songs, all of which were presented flawlessly by lead man David Best. i'm often surprised when i see the makeup of a band i know little about and what instruments they use to recreate their sound (e.g. i flipped when i realized that Tortoise has two, and sometimes three, xylophonists!) while i knew that F & M were not Japanese (they apparently took their name at random from The Karate Kid and a brand of stereo equipment) i had no idea that they were a three-piece, or that only one of them uses a keyboard, the others sticking almost exclusively to their guitar and bass.

ahhhhhhh

i just had my first real bath in seven months
trevor is a happy boy

les concerts a emporter ...

website La Blogothèque posts some amazing (and very original) live performances from artists the likes of final fantasy, arcade fire, and the national

... and the menomena clip is ssoo cute!

my film fest sched [updated]

Saturday: Erik Nietzsche The Early Years (Jacob Thuesen)
this was interesting: written by famous Danish director Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark), it's the story of his experience at Stockholm's government-sponsored film school in the late seventies (von Trier's actual student films are strewn throughout.) it was quite funny, and a very good window into the history and motivation of this famously ruthless artist

Sunday: Joy Division (Grant Gee)
Vanessa and i loved this one: an extremely well-made documentary about one of the most influential bands of the last century. Grant Gee, who also directed Radiohead's Meeting People is Easy, took us back in time to 1979 Manchester through his masterly use of interviews, music, photography, and rare live performances .... i haven't stopped listening to Unknown Pleasures since i left the theatre

Monday: No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
intense. beautiful. brilliant performances by Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem (who was also wonderful in The Sea Inside). the Coen brothers have done it again

Tuesday: In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis)
Wednesday: Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)
Thursday: Man of Cinema: Pierre Risseent (Todd McCarthy)
Saturday: Man from Plains (Jonathan Demme)

potential ... lol

genealogy

i had previously been aware that surnames came into popular use in 12th-century Europe, and that many people came to be identified by what they did for a living. a blacksmith named John, became John Smith. a man who made his living grinding flour from grain took the name Miller. so i had naively assumed that my Scottish forefathers, the Walkers, simply did a lot of walking, probably as shepherds or the like. well, i was close (about the sheep part, at least) ...

it turns out that the name Walker is derived from the name Waulker. a waulker was a 'fuller of cloth'; someone who cleaned, softened, and thickened wool for a living.

ah, sweet solitude

after three months in crazy Africa and two weeks in hectic London, yesterday was exactly what i needed: some time in the quiet English countryside and a hike through the striking wilderness of Dartmoor

sidenote: the little inn where i dined was built in 1329 .... Oliver Cromwell once stayed there!

introducing: iPhone

Apple recently posted a guided tour to their new iPhone ... what a magnificent little device!

epilogue

ninety-nine days since my departure from Toronto, over a hundred since my departure from my job. it’s fruitless to consider how the time itself ‘feels’ to me (“it seems like yesterday that i was having hot showers in my cozy apartment!” v. “it feels like i haven’t had a soothing bath in ages!”) ... but what an experience so far:
my first glimpse of Africa
the first glimpse of my continuing freedom!

one thing that has solidified itself in my thinking, my feeling, and my overall belief system is my confidence in life itself; how everything works out wonderfully if only i listen to and follow my heart (my instincts, my path, my callitwhatyouwill) for where has life led me in the past three months that i have not wanted or needed to go?!

my travels around Malawi led me to meet an assortment of beautiful and inspiring people, and to experience many equally beautiful places.

my meeting V and having everything I knew to be right re-enforced and emphasized.

my decision to come to Malamulo not knowing how i would contribute, and the ‘coincidence’ that what they precisely needed from a volunteer was IT help.

my frustration leading me to ask for further purpose and social interaction, both of which were presented to me immediately upon my asking

my want of things to do leading to the incorporation of yoga and alexander (cognitive therapy for the body) into my daily routine.

my overspending ways coinciding with an unexpected windfall of cash from stock options, and this in tern coinciding with the need for loans to the hospital and my friend Léo.

and so i’m off to the UK on Thursday ... more updates from there, i’m sure! ;)

label index

tired of travel updates? delve into my sorted past using labels:
poetry?
music
books
photos
geek
work
retirement

happy happy

oh my, i have sounded a tad disheartened lately, haven’t i?! (the reassuring e-mails telling me to ‘hang in there’ were a tip off! hehe) no, i’ve not come unhinged yet! ... this year. and, i should mention, i hated call-in shows just as much at home ;)

let me counterbalance my projected dis-ease with a list of recent positives; for all of our sakes:

Jesman served me chicken last week! (no, i’m not being facetious ... okay, maybe a bit)

he entered the kitchen one afternoon with a recently plucked bird:
“oh Jesman, is that for me?!”
laughing: “oh no ... you don’t eat chicken”
ummm: “oh yes i do ... i don’t eat beef or pork, but i eat birds”
still laughing politely (it’s his way): “oh oh oh, i thought you were a vegetarian?!”
little-smelly-fish: “no, no. i love chicken! i actually eat fish too, but i don’t like it very much”

and so i was served chicken for lunch. :)


i bought a cute little Nokia phone for my travels (hence my phone number here.) it’s GSM, so i’m going to get a new pay-as-you-go SIM card in the UK, another when i’m home in T. in August, and one in NZ. i loved that i could buy a cheap, simple, sturdy phone here without having to pay for a camera, MP3 player or colour screen, none of which i need.


when people burn leaves here (which is every day at this time of year) the smoke smells a bit like marijuana ... which is quite plentiful here anyway. speaking of sin, Malawi Gin is very inexpensive and quite satisfactory.


and speaking of sin once more, i’ve a funny little story:
when Gord and i first arrived at Malamulo, one of the first things asked us by one of the Seventh Day Adventist missionary doctors was: “did you bring prophylactics?” we just STARED at each other in bewilderment .... until she started naming off anti-malaria drugs! (any kind of ‘protection’ is a prophylactic to a doctor, apparently! ha)


i am cared for like a son by my friends Yvonne and Léo. she is a doctor (the one quoted above, in fact) and he’s the head of maintenance. they’re from Mexico and are very cute. they also have two dogs (‘dingo’ and ‘fortuna’) who i love, and a cat who loves me ... hehe


i have a nice view out of my front window just now: the red-brick foundations of my balcony, flowers blossoming in my garden (poinsettias, pink ones, and something that looks like a more-fully-developed baby’s breath), the sunset hitting the trees, and then the hazy valley off in the distance and the orange-to-blue late afternoon sky .... ah me


i have been reading like a ... well, like a thing that reads a lot, as you might have noticed from the ever-changing right panel of my blog. i’ve also used my plentiful time to incorporate yoga and the alexander technique into my daily routine (i’ve recorded set practices for myself in GarageBand, background music and all! 8) i try to exercise daily as well, but my no-protein diet doesn’t allow me to show it very well

how i use my iPod. part 1

i maintain a playlist called new and underplayed. i place most of the new music i download/burn onto this playlist, and also occasionally add an older album or song from my collection.

there are then three paths a song can take. either i:
- delete the song from my iPod completely
- delete the song from the new and underplayed playlist, but keep it on my iPod (delectable collectables)
- or i listen to the song until it’s play count hits 10, at which time i deleted it from the playlist

by this time, the song may have received a rating from * to *****

there are those who call me .. organizmo?

the banded ones were all dressed in white gowns –- a gay survival from the Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms –- days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average.

a trilogy of miscentry ... fin

i now know what it feels like to be a celebrity. everyone here STARES at me constantly, and those who speak English inevitably want to ‘be my friend’

if the new American Dream is to win the lottery (which I assert it is), then the new African Dream is to befriend a Westerner who will magically transport them away from here and pay for a life of luxury in Europe or America .... or maybe i’m becoming cynical

Africans love sugar ... even crisps (potato chips) are sweet and have added sugar. ‘glucose’ cookies are also quite popular. on a related note, cooking oil is a cook’s best friend ... fried = deep fried .. and so fried eggs look like they’ve been tempura-battered

there are lizards (geckos?) EVERYWHERE ... in my house, on my house, running past my house ....

one of my evening pastimes (especially since i ran out of videos to watch on my laptop) is listening to the BBC World Service on my little radio. unfortunately, the evening hours are occupied by the programs World, Have Your Say, and Africa, Have Your Say (call-in shows.) a quick note to the world: have your say with your friends please, not on my radio! you are completely biased, know very little about the world at large, and never think your arguments through

[deep breath]

do i sound negative? i hope not .... at the same time, i’m looking forward to returning to civilization in three weeks! :)

Mm2 / count. cont.

i sleep under a insecticide-treated mosquito net every night. they are the most cost-effective non-medical method of preventing malaria, and yet most Africans can’t afford them (they are C$7.00 here)

roosters don’t only crow when the sun comes up (surprise, surprise, city dwellers!!) ... that said, they never miss a sunrise because they basically crow 24 / 7 [twitch]

poinsettias bloom in May in Malawi ... in my garden

African B.O. is very .. ‘oniony’

traffic lights are called 'robots' in sourthern Africa (???)

P.S. “two wrongs don’t make a right ... but three lefts do!” <= did i invent this quote? *cough* “chip monk”

Malawi miscentry

there are certain things to which i have become accustomed, which will no doubt be of interest to those who have not visited Malawi (or Africa in general):

the women of Africa do indeed carry everything on their heads. the most curious items i’ve seen balanced on a woman’s head to date are:
- an unopened umbrella (balanced horizontally, that is)
- a tea pot (the song comes to mind: “i’m a little tea pot short and stout ...”)
- a purse strap, the purse hanging behind the head (it's the new fashion, ladies!)
more usual items include buckets of water or fruit, bunches of firewood, and sacks of grain.

speaking of women, it quickly becomes apparent to any visitor that they do most of the work here. women are in charge of taking care of the children (in fact, it’s seldom that you’ll see a fertile-aged woman without a child strapped to her back), fetching the water, collecting the firewood, washing (and making) the clothes, cleaning the hut, and on and on. their busyness is so marked that you almost never see a woman sitting still unless she is behind a food stand. the men on the other hand? well, they ... hmmm .... stand around with other men, sit around with other men, drink beer, eat sugar cane ... what else .... annoy tourists with their pleas for money?! in all fairness, being a man here is no doubt frustrating; they are in charge of ‘providing for the household’, and with unemployment so high it seems they are pathetically reduced to the above activities.

the worst job in Malawi: making gravel. driving in to town you see dozens of men sitting on the side of the road beside a pile of rocks. they sit there all day banging larger rocks together to make smaller rocks. their payment: 35 cents per bucket of gravel! one hopes that they manage to produce multiple buckets in a day.

the main form of transportation here is the ‘mini-bus’. these are mini-van-sized vehicles astoundedly packed with four or five rows of seats. a mini-bus never leaves for it’s destination until it is completely full ... ‘completely full’ means at least four people stuffed into each row, with the conductor either sitting on someone’s lap or precariously hanging out the window. my record for ‘most crammed mini-bus’: 27 people, with their belongings! typical belongings include live chickens (“excuse me ma’am, but your chicken is pecking at my foot”), boxes of day-old chicks (cute, until you realize that they are a delicacy), and sacks of grain.

have you noticed the references to ‘sacks of grain’? the main food staple here is called nsima. it’s made of corn flour and water, has the consistency of five-day-old instant mashed potatoes, and tastes like ... paper? the locals eat it almost exclusively, sometimes with ‘relish’ (fried, chopped plant leaves) for vitamins and beans for protein. fish is for rich people (tiny, dried fish which smell terrible), chicken is for very rich people, and beef is for foreigners (there is no pork here, likely due to the considerable muslim and seventh-day adventist populations.) another delicacy: mice, roasted over an open fire (most of the hair is singed off ... and everything except the tail is consumed!)

having told Jesman (my cook) that i’m not a fan of nsima or tiny-smelly-fish, my typical meal consists of rice, beans, and ‘relish’ ... as a result, i’ve taken to carrying a bottle of spicy sauce with me everywhere! still, i can’t complain; Jesman makes me special treats every now and again including pasta, pizza, and chips. if there’s a visitor he will even make muffins or cake. these are such a rarity here, however, that they have not yet invented different flavours of cake! as such, i quietly joke with my friends when we see that we have ‘muffin-flavoured muffins’ or ‘cake-flavoured cake’ for dessert.

and lastly: names! i am terrible at remembering peoples’ last names here as they all sound the same to me. for example, i work with misters Kuyenda, Chiwanda, and Katumbi. some have African first names, but many have taken on highly proper British names such as Evans, Wales, and Pius ... speaking broken English with a guy named Wales is almost as funny as hearing a French guy rap! hehe. some others have taken on rather humorous English names like Friday and Happy (more about Happy, later)

oh, and one more thing: i remarked to Andréa last month that “Malawi is like [my cousin] Chris. time does not work here!” at present i am waiting for a friend who agreed to come by my place at 10am ... it’s already past 11:30. i’ve also learned that “tomorrow” actually just means “not today”, and one of the doctors mused that she was once called in for an “emergency” only to have the patient saunter in four hours later!

my Malawian friend just arrived and i tried to explain to him that for Westerners, 10am means 10am, not 12pm, or “whenever you get around to it.” .... i did not mention Chris. ;)

une annee sans lumiere

on Sunday the president came .. and so on Saturday morning there was an explosion.

i awoke to silence .... well, except for the rooster crowing and the pheasants squawking outside my window. [flick] no lights. no electricity. no hot water. nothing unusual. i dressed and left the house, and ran into the pastor’s wife:

“cooking oil ... they did it for the cooking oil! did you hear the explosion this morning?”
“no, what happened?”
“someone stole the oil from the transformer and it exploded. we’ll be without electricity for a year! they took the oil to fry chips to sell during the president’s visit.”

the president came yesterday. thousands attended. some ate chips. some of the same will arrive at the hospital today with food poisoning ... gawd knows what’s in transformer oil

when the power’s out
in the heart of man
take it from your heart
put it in your hand

grammatical fiction

Rubashov had always believed that he knew himself rather well. Being without moral prejudices, he had no illusions about the phenomenon called the ‘first person singular’, and had taken for granted, without particular emotion, that this phenomenon was endowed with certain impulses which people are generally reluctant to admit. Now, when he stood with his forehead against the window or suddenly stopped on the third black tile, he made unexpected discoveries. He found out that those processes wrongly known as ‘monologues’ are really dialogues of a special kind; dialogues in which one partner remains silent while the other, against all grammatical rules, addresses him as ‘I’ instead of ‘you’, in order to creep into his confidence and to fathom his intentions; but the silent partner just remains silent, shuns observations and even refuses to be localized in time and space.
Now, however, it seemed to Rubashov that the habitually silent partner spoke sometimes, without being addressed and without any visible pretext; his voice sounded totally unfamiliar to Rubashov, who listened in honest wonder and found that his own lips were moving. These experiences held nothing mystic or mysterious; they were of a quite concrete character; and by his observations Rubashov gradually became convinced that there was a thoroughly tangible component in this first person singular, which had remained silent through all these years and now had started to speak.
...
Rubashov tried to study this newly discovered entity very thoroughly during his wanderings through the cell; with the shyness of emphasizing the first person singular customary to the Party, he had christened it the ‘grammatical fiction.’ He probably had only a few weeks left to live, and he felt a compelling urge to clear up this matter, to ‘think it to a logical conclusion.’ But the realm of the ‘grammatical fiction’ seemed to begin just where the ‘thinking to a conclusion’ ended. It was obviously an essential part of its being, to remain out of the reach of logical thought, and then to take one unawares, as from an ambush, and attack one with day-dreams and toothache.

denominations ...

one thing that has baffled me and my fellow travelers is the monetary denominations in Malawi. the smallest ‘paper money’ bill is 5 Kwacha … about 4 Cents Canadian. this doesn’t present too many problems; you get rid of these as tips or save up for a Coke (40 K). the bigger issue is that the largest bill in the country is 500 Kwacha, or C$4. this is a huge problem when you’re trying to pay for something expensive, or when you’re not going to see a bank again for a while. for example, when Gord and i stayed in Cape Maclear for eight days, we ran out of cash and had to do a day trip to the nearest city to hit a bank. i personally had to withdraw 60,000 Kwacha to pay for my Scuba course, my bar tab, and my future days of travel out in the Lake. with only 500 Kwacha bills to work with, i had one-hundred and twenty bills in my pockets for the drive back, each pocket bursting!

now add to this the fact that most transactions in Malawi use cash; Visa is almost never accepted, and bank transfers don’t seem to exist yet for the average consumer.

on Friday, my colleague Dr. Marana bought a used car. the price: 1.2 million Kwacha (C$10,000). the method of payment: cash, of course! since the exchange rate she was quoted at the bank was terrible, we drove to ‘see a guy’. we pulled up to his hardware store and were invited to sit with him at a desk behind the counter.

“how can i help you, my friends?”

“i need 1.2 million Kwacha, cash. i have a personal cheque”

“no problem, no problem” ...

rates where negotiated, an international account transfer replaced the cheque, and we were taken upstairs to the man’s office. [THUNK] “one-hundred thousand” [THUNK] “two-hundred thousand” [THUD] “three-hundred thousand” .... 1.2 million Kwacha handed to us in a plastic bag! it filled the plastic bag. it was a rather large bag. we nervously placed the bag in a backpack and made our way to the location chosen for the transaction: a shopping mall parking lot. the seller pulled up, entered out mini-van, the bag was displayed, and the swap made. it totally felt like a drug deal!

as a side note, i went to the post office today to mail a small package to Germany. the cost: 1280 Kwacha. the stamps i received: twelve 100 Kwacha stamps, one 50 Kwacha stamp, seven 4 Kwacha stamps, and four 1 Kwacha stamps ... the front of the package was completely covered, and so the rest had to be put on the back! ha

i, T

hello my fiends! i've been at the hospital for only a week now, but already my to-do list is months long. so far, the administration would like me to:

• network their computers
• digitize their patient records in a central database
• implement a computerized inventory control system to track medicine throughout the hospital
• connect them to the internet
• stay longer than June 7 to get all of this done!

i'm also giving Excel lessons and working with a couple of American volunteers to finish some proposals for funding ... busy busy! still, i'm so glad that i've found some needs which i can address, even if i get through only half of them during my time here

i’m on a mission / you betta just listen ...

i arrived at the Malamulo Mission (where i will be volunteering) last night. The mission was established outside of the city of Blantyre by the Seventh Day Adventist Church more than 100 years ago (i’m still researching Seventh Day Adventism (like, what the heck happened on the seventh day? i thought god rested!) but so far i’ve figured out that they are Christian, their Sabbath is on Saturday, and they don’t dance, drink, or wear jewelry ... i’ll let you know what else is involved as i interact a bit more. ;)

it's a self-contained community out in the middle of a rural area, surrounded by rolling hills and tea plantations. it has a free hospital, a nursing college, a secondary school, a primary school, and, of course, a printing press?! i'm one of only six wuzungu (white people) in a community of thousands, so i've gotten used to being stared at everywhere i go. still, the children are very cute and always wave and shout "wuzungu!" at me as i pass .. ha!

i'll be living in a house on campus for the next two months. it's a cute little place with a large bedroom and living room, a kitchen (although my meals will be prepared for me at the 'guest house' down the street), a front terrace, and a sweet little cobblestone courtyard. this being africa, the electricity and water are intermittent so i've gotten used to doing without when necessary. i'm also used to the 'african shower', which involves crouching in a tub and splashing water over yourself as best you can.

i'm not sure exactly what my volunteering will entail, but so far i've been asked to co-write a proposal to U.S. Aid for some funding. i'm really happy about this, as i've written dozens of proposals in the past, and this one will be much more fulfilling than my previous efforts (e.g. to implement millions of dollars worth of software so that one corporation can more easily take over another)

there is no internet access at the mission, so my e-mails and blog entries will mostly be written during the week on my laptop, then sent from internet cafes in the city. i hope to do this each week. okay, i'm off now to shop for supplies for my house (coffee!!) i love hearing news from home, so please continue to write when you can. love you!

afriggin' lion safari

WOW! i just returned from a three-day trip to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. we saw the most amazing assortment of animals.

first was a day safari. we hopped in our vehicle and after driving only 30 metres (from the hut where i was sleeping!) we saw two giraffes. then we pulled out of the camp and onto the main road to find a huge elephant sleeping under a tree at the side of the road! minutes later we were in the park and the real extravaganza began: a dozen hippos having a bath, an elephant mother and baby grazing on the tall grass, a group of giraffes munching on some trees, a herd of zebra taking a rest ... simply breathtaking! on the drive back to the camp we were confronted by a huge bull elephant walking down the middle of the road towards us. he walked right up to our truck before diverging to the side of the road as we revved our engine (i managed to capture a video of that one; a must-see when i get home!)

that same evening we set off on a night safari, which was equally spectacular. first we saw a herd of elephants walking into the bush, while one stood guard and another rolled around in the dirt to cool off. after a beautiful sunset we drove around with a spotter trying to find some of the elusive nocturnal cats. after a fair bit of tracking, we heard a pair of lions attacking a buffalo just metres to our left, and turned the spotlight in time to catch some of the action (the lions were not successful, and were rather peeved that we disturbed their hunt.) the word 'intense' does not adequatly describe these few minutes.

and now i'm back in Lilongwe for a coupla days before heading down south on Thursday morning. take care all!

paradise by the starboard light

hey everyone! i'm still having a wonderful time here in Malawi!! after my last update i performed two more dives (to 30m) and explored a shipwreck and an underwater canyon ... amazing experiences both. after a total of eight nights in Cape Maclear, we hopped in the back of a pickup truck (a popular mode of transport here) and were taken to Monkey Bay, where we joined some of our new friends on a 'boat cruise' up Lake Malawi.

our group was initially split between two destinations, but we decided that we'd be crazy not to stick together a little longer ... and so ten of us spent the next few days as the only residents of a little resort on Likoma Island, just a few kilometres from Mozambique. what a paradise, this place!

after a night of star-gazing and a wonderful sleep, i woke up in a darling thatch-roofed hut, my window open to a beautiful sandy beach, a refreshing breeze, crystal clear water, and the shining sun. we spent the next days swimming, snorkeling, and exploring the island, while the evenings continued to bless us with skies that inspired both conversation and introspection.

on Tuesday we said a sad farewell and jumped back on the boat for our journey back south. i followed Gord to the capital city of Lilongwe to say our final goodbyes, and checked into a camp outside of town. this morning two of my close friends arrived, two more will arrive this afternoon, and tomorrow we'll all set off for a safari in Zambia ... needless to say, i'm extremely excited!

i have one more week of travel and adventure before settling down to volunteer after Easter. this will be a much different experience, but i'm looking forward to the cultural exchanges it will provide, as well as the opportunitiy to make a bitofa difference to this country which has been so good to me.

that's it for now. i hope you continue to live, learn, and love, and i look forward to hearing from you. ciao for niao!

blog prob

hey everyone! i haven't been able to access my blog again until now (something about the computers here not having Java) but i'm having a great time!

we've been in a place called Cape Maclear for the past week; a beautiful little resort town on the south coast of Lake Malawi. it's a little piece of paradise really: sandy beaches, sunny skies, and the clearest water. i've obtained my Scuba diving certification and have been swimming with the fishies for the past four days. tomorrow i'll get my deep diving cert and explore a sunken shipwreck. what an amazing experience it's been!

before this we were in Liwonde National Park. we did walking and canoeing safaris and saw baboons, monkeys, warthogs, water bucks and impallas. while in the canoe we were surrounded by seven hippos playing with each other ... very cool!

and before that we climbed the Mulanje Massif, a huge mountain here in the south of Malawi. it was really tough, but we enjoyed the challenge and the reward of some great views.

the weather has been amazing as well. we arrived during rainy season, but that just meant a one-hour rain storm each day. now we've suddenly transitioned into the dry season and it hasn't rained in a week! :D

okay, so now we're off to the nearest city to use the bank. next we'll hop on a boat and travel up the lake to our next destination.

i miss you all and i'll write more when i get a good connection again. ciao!

international flavour

After meeting at the airport, Gord and I took a taxi into Lilongwe and checked into our hotel, a nice little place with much-appreciated mosquito nets over the beds and an en-suite bathroom. As we left the hotel to do some chores (book our bus for the next day, get some local currency) we were immediately inundated with requests to check out the local merchants’ wares. As uncomfortable as this can be, the people here are extremely nice ... “not now, thanks” usually shoos them away, which is more than you can expect as a westerner in most poorer countries.

We then gave a call to friends of a friend of Gord’s (Melissa, Shawn, and their son Wiley) who are Canadians working here in Malawi; she as an environmentalist helping farming associations to organize, he as an Emergency Aid worker who’s seen action in Afghanistan and Pakistan and spends his spare time making furniture out of metal and wood ... great people leading interesting and inspirational lives! And our first African experience together: pizza and mini-golf! Very ironic, but a lot of fun. Afterward they took us to a neat little local bar where we had a coupla beers before heading to their house for conversation and a few more.

Yesterday we went for a swim at Melissa and Shawn’s social club (the Portuguese Society of Malawi) before hopping on a bus south to Blantyre. We were met by Gord’s friends Alma and Leo and driven to Malamulo, the missionary hospital where I will be volunteering at the end of the month. We settled into our guest house (complete with an African bee nest in one room and no running water) were we sweat the night away trying to sleep before waking at the crack of dawn to get a drive back into town. Today we grabbed breakfast at a café with a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains and did a little shopping. I picked up a cheap GSM cell phone for my international travels this year and had a nice surprise when I saw my new phone number: +265 8738 485 ... 8738 were my digits back in Toronto and spell the word TREV! What an amazing coincidence, eh?! Anyway, feel free to call and/or text ... receiving either is free for me. :) ... oh, and for those who don't know how to dial overseas, in Canada it's 011 265 8738 485

This afternoon we met up with Alma and her friend Rohit and were treated to a full homemade Indian lunch at his family’s house ... wonderful food, and equally wonderful people. So in short, everything is fabulous and could not have come together any smoother.

taking flight

flying over Africa, i consider what has passed and what is to come. i didn’t sleep a wink tonight, but feel fortunate that my flights have (so far) been on time ... if i arrive safely AND with my bags i’ll consider myself lucky despite my weariness

the Cursive concert the other night was excellent! a hundred of us in a cool little venue in Camden, Michael and i met some Oxford-Americans and went with them to his friend’s reggae party in Brixton. quite the scene (less the hour-long tube ride and hour-long walk through the suburbs to get there.) i scored some shizzle from some Rastafarians while Michael tried (and repeatedly failed) to lose at pool and not get our asses kicked

Friday night Déia and i went out with my old friends Alex and Cello and her Spanish cousins. a nice dinner at Waggamama with some sake to boot

and now i’m flying over Africa, considering what is to come. (some new experiences to share quickly: all of the flight information is in English and Swahili, which is a first for me; and the entire crew on this Kenya Airways flight is, naturally, black ... nothing revolutionary, just another first for me)

i’m trying to allow my reality of freedom to calm me ... there is nowhere i NEED to be ... nothing i NEED to do ... ever again?! it still hasn’t quite hit me ... nor has the fact that i’m landing in Nairobi in 30 minutes

p.s. i arrived safely, on time, and with my bags ... as did Gord twenty minutes later! :)

freedom writer ...

sitting in a wander-found park, in the middle of an ancient cemetery, having randomly passed the graves of William Blake and Daniel Defoe, i open my notebook to write about the LACK of freedom which defined my first two days of independence, and find an open internet connection as a flock of birds flies over my head .... ah, the irony

my career a la IBM officially ended on Friday, and so Monday was to be my first taste of this new phase of life. it was spent in:
- a taxi
- an airport
- a small pressurized tube
- another airport
- a derelict subway car, and
- the dark windy streets of a strange city
... and so i eagerly awaited my first 'real' day of freedom

i woke on Tuesday full of high hopes and meagre expectations: a coffee and sandwich out about town? a trip to the market? a nice walk perhaps? i gathered the wherewithal to have a shower and dress, and searched the apartment for the key which i had been told was “on the kitchen counter” waiting for me .... no apartment key; no possibility of going out. i spent the afternoon trapped in Déia's tiny flat and read in bed (that said, i'm loving my new book; if you haven't read anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez then you are truly missing out)

i am happy to announce, however, that i have since spread my wings and am feeling quite free thankyouverymuch: on Tuesday night we went out to a nice Spanish bar for beers with friends, on Wednesday i toured the Victoria & Albert Museum (and particularly enjoyed the new exhibit on Islamic art and design), and tonight i’m off to a small club in Camden Town to see one of my favourite bands: Cursive

all is well on the Eastern front. take care my love!

:. hereis goodby

01. ticket to immortality; the dears
02. love machine; arctic monkeys
03. reject the frequency; of montreal
04. vacation; republic of safety
05. meek warrior; akron/family
06. this harness can't ride anything; chin up chin up
07. wasted state of mind; ... and you will know us by the trail of dead
08. one night on earth; the veils
09. the room got heavy; yo la tengo
10. untitled; neutral milk hotel
11. kick, push; lupe fiasco
12. georgia...bush; lil' wayne
13. suddenly everything has changed; the flaming lips
14. the orchids; califone
15. i see you; rubicks
16. all fires; swan lake
17. he poos clouds; final fantasy
18. crowd surf off a cliff; emily haines
19. my wandering days are over; belle & sebastian

if you play my iPod on shuffle ...

... you have a 3.3% chance of hearing Billy Corgan

(i have 8175 songs, at present)

zed

Malawi is surrounded by the "z" countries of southern Africa:

my letter of resignation (sent)

Hi Guys,

I'm writing to you today to officially give two weeks notice of my resignation from IBM Canada, effective Friday February 23.

As you are well aware, my personal goals and those of IBM have been diverging for quite some time. I could go on for pages explaining my points of view, but in short I subscribe to Gandhi's philosophy of "non-participation in anything you believe to be evil." I believe most large corporations to be inherently evil. Their sole purpose (their sole legally-sanctioned purpose, in fact) is to increase their own profits, the rest of the world (humans, the environment, other 'externalities') be damned. I never intended to work for one, will never work for one again, and look forward to the day when this flawed system of ownership is corrected, for all of our sakes.

All of that said, I would like to thank both of you personally; N___, for giving me a chance way-back-when; and G_____, for putting up with me for the past four years ... I realize that it hasn't always been easy. I hope that you wish me the best of luck in my future endeavors, as I wish each of you.

The rest of my life will be dedicated to varied pursuits, including living up to my own standards each and every day and trying to make the world a better place. My first step will be a trip to Africa next month, where I'll be volunteering at a teaching hospital and trying to rid myself of some of my materialist tendencies. I've been accused of being naive .... we shall see.

Please let me know if there are any administrative hoops I need to jump through to make this official; it's certainly indicative of our company (and my diminished interest in it) that I have no idea who the appropriate HR person is to contact.

Kind regards,
T_____

the sweetest puppy in the world

this is Bear, a doggie that i'm fostering until we can find her a good home. she is ssoo smart and cute and gentle ... i wanna adopt her!

got my shots ...

hepatitis A
hepatitis B
typhoid
yellow fever

ugh!!

booked my flight!!!

Toronto => London :: Feb 26

London => Lilongwe :: March 3

Lilongwe => London :: June 7

London => Toronto :: Aug 13

and still to book:

Toronto => Christchurch :: mid-Sept

Christchurch => Toronto :: mid-Jan 2008

countdown to freedom ...

40 days!!!

compare ...

tightness
holding

openness
releasing